Risen Indeed: A Historical Investigation Into the Resurrection of Jesus Paperback – November 3, 2021

This book was a great historical overview (not as detailed as “Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus” by William lane Craig).However, Habermas has a specific focus on the resurrection in this book, Including a critique of David Hume’s accusations against Miracles.Habermas shows how a physicist describes that advances in physics shows that miracles are actually possible, and that the resurrection of Jesus could have actually happened in history.This book is helpful, but not as straightforward in demonstrating that Jesus rose from the dead as other books like Thomas A. Miller’s book “Did Jesus really rise from the dead? A surgeon scientist examines the evidence”.I’d still buy it, whether you are a skeptic, Christian, or whatever.

I was expecting a book on the Resurrection of Jesus that rattles off facts surrounding the event and then dissecting them. To my surprise, Habermas takes a step back so to speak and lays out 3 broad perspectives: that the resurrection did not occur, that it did occur but cannot be demonstrated, and lastly that it did occur and it can be demonstrated. What was most useful to me was that the book explains and develops the thought process behind these perspectives. You're not just told what X scholar believes and why it's right or wrong. You're educated on the underlying assumptions when it comes to history and miracles. Readers will come away confident in how they are supposed to approach the Resurrection of Jesus. The actual presentation of Habermas' data is quite modest, but you feel the force of it once he has taken all these historical, philosophical, and theological considerations on board. His minimal facts are simple but powerful. I'm buying his 1000 page "On the Resurrection" volume next!

This is careful scholarship where care is due. If you want a rational analysis of the most important thing that ever happened in the history of man this is it.

Although I was familiar with Gary Habermas’ popularized “minimal facts argument” as presented in other books I’ve read, Risen Indeed: A Historical Investigation into the Resurrection of Jesus is the first book of Habermas’ that I’ve actually read. I got a chance to hear him speak at the university where I work a couple years ago when Cru invited him to speak to students, so I was looking forward to finally reading his work. With the exception of a new introductory essay on the historical and current state of Jesus scholarship and trends, this book is actually Habermas’ 1976 PhD dissertation on the resurrection of Jesus.The book begins with a new introductory essay by Habermas in which he briefly provides some autobiographical remarks on the origins of his investigation of Jesus’ resurrection. He also discusses the beginnings of the Third Quest for the Historical Jesus, as well as the state of resurrection scholarship and trends since his dissertation was published. Habermas also provides his minimal facts argument, which he calls his “central methodological concept” of his resurrection research. For anyone unfamiliar, this argument lists a handful of facts about Jesus that virtually all critical scholars accept. There are certainly critics of the minimal facts argument and concerns related to how reliable Habermas takes the Gospels to be; however the minimal facts argument is not developed in his dissertation, and thus is not a major element of this book.Habermas concludes his new introduction by stating, “The case for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection and his appearance was already strong in 1976. It is significantly more robust today” (28).The bulk of this book, then, is his dissertation, as noted above. As such, it is divided into three main parts: “Approaching the Question of the Resurrection of Jesus,” “Possible Solutions to the Question of the Resurrection of Jesus,” and “An Evaluation of the Solutions to the Question of the Resurrection of Jesus.”In Part One, he discusses the importance of the resurrection, miracles, science, history, logic, and philosophy. I really enjoyed reading this section as it helps set the stage for why the resurrection can’t simply be ignored or rejected. He writes, “The scientific worldview can no longer be used to rule out the miraculous. Rather we must speak in terms of probabilities and investigate each miracle-claim. Here history also plays a part… Again we must decide upon historical probability and accept as factual that explanation which best fits the facts” (86).Part Two, then, lays out three main perspectives on the resurrection: (1) that it did not occur; (2) that it did occur but cannot be demonstrated; and (3) that it did occur and can be demonstrated. He begins each perspective with a paradigmatic scholar: Hume, Kierkegaard, and Pannenberg, respectively. After laying out each scholar’s position, he has a follow-up chapter with similar views from other scholars. Throughout, Habermas provides his own commentary on the positive and negative aspects of the various views, though it’s not until Part Three that he makes any final conclusions.For those who don’t know or haven’t caught on yet,, Habermas affirms that the third perspective best fits the fact surrounding the resurrection: “It has been ascertained that the literal resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the historical event which best accounts for the known facts surrounding this occurrence” (254). Lest you think he’s just assuming that, Habermas discusses in-depth the various naturalistic theories and demonstrates why they fail to account for all of the evidence. He also dispenses with the view that the resurrection is simply a faith position that cannot be demonstrated historically.Though there was much I could have underlined in this book, the only passage that I decided to highlight was this one, found in his conclusion: “Thus, one who would deny the resurrection must both adequately explain all of these facts and offer a probable alternate view to the appearances. But as we have seen, no such probable alternative view exists, as even the more popular naturalistic theories fail to properly account for the facts which occurred” (257).It’s quite possible that this book, due to its purpose as a PhD dissertation, will be too academic and difficult to read for some people. But I think it’s very much worth the effort to read to understand why Christians continue to affirm the bodily resurrection of Jesus as an objective, historical claim. If you want to reject the resurrection after reading this, what remains is simply affirming one of the problematic positions that fails to adequately explain the evidence. At that point, you’ll need to ask yourself if it takes more faith to deny the resurrection or to accept it.I received this book for free from Lexham Press and was not required to write a positive review.

The book is obviously a high level view of research done by the author. But that’s what it makes it so great, you’re able to get a perfect foundation in the research both done in the past and today for the resurrection. There is nothing more important to Christianity than the resurrection of Christ and somehow…SOMEHOW Habermas creates a framework of unbiased (to the possible degree) arguments for the resurrection. I think it’s a must read for every believer for the same reason I think learning apologetics is a must—“make every effort”- RC

Looks like a great book but unable to download on my Kindle and just discovered it past the return date.

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